Amazon Plans 1,000 Same-Day Delivery Centers by 2031

Amazon.com Inc. is launching Project Mercury, a massive expansion of its same-day delivery network designed to place fulfillment centers within a 10-mile radius of 80% of U.S. Prime subscribers. The company aims to grow its number of same-day facilities from approximately 85 to more than 1,000 by 2031.

To achieve this, Amazon is utilizing Orbital facilities—smaller, 100,000-square-foot warehouses costing roughly $48.4 million each—capable of processing 75,000 items daily. These centers will stock a curated selection of 90,000 high-demand products, including medicines and groceries. The company has budgeted $6.8 billion for capacity across 2026 and 2027.

The initiative targets the competitive advantage of Walmart, which uses roughly 5,000 stores to provide fast delivery to 90% of the U.S. population. Amazon executives believe that increasing delivery speed will directly increase the probability of purchase and customer shopping frequency.

Bank of America analysts describe the investment as manageable, projecting the project will become cash-flow positive by 2030 and generate $7.1 billion in economic value over a decade. While Amazon noted these projections are preliminary, the move is part of a broader strategy to build a denser, automated fulfillment network to improve retail profit margins.